“About … ten hours,” said the Hawk, squinting at the sun.

Anji wiped sleep from her eyes, wincing at the lancing pain in her knuckles. The blistered wounds seeped a viscous, shiny fluid. She glanced at the town ahead. “That place have enough windmills?”

The Hawk said nothing.

“Water?”

The Hawk thrust a canteen at her, gaze still fixed on the road. Anji took it and drank deep, the tepid water dribbling down her chin. She chanced another question and asked where they were headed, and to her surprise the Hawk answered:

“Kiva,” she said. “We’re just passing through. I’ve an acquaintance there who owns an inn. We need to see to your wounds before infection sets in.” She looked down the trail at their backs. “The others will follow. We may be half a day ahead of them. They’ll be slower on one horse.” Then she patted one of the Goat’s saddlebags. “They don’t have their scrying sheet either. That will buy us some time.”

Anji was hardly listening. She looked down at her mangled hand, at the grisly gap between ring finger and thumb, and realized right then that she didn’t care where they were going, as long as it wasn’t back to the cathedral, back to the Menagerie.

Or what’s left of it, she thought, allowing herself a satisfied smile. But something was still nagging at her.

“So,” she said, “your name is Kit?”

The Hawk exhaled a long breath. “She shouldn’t have used it. Not in front of you.” She reached for the canteen. “Not that it matters now, I suppose.”

Anji stoppered the skin and handed it back.

“You shouldn’t have killed her,” Kit said, her face hard, still not looking up.

Anji gaped. “I shouldn’t have—” she sputtered. “I had to—another few seconds and she would have—”

“I was fine!” Kit yelled, startling a pair of black birds out of the foliage bordering the trail. They cawed and flapped away toward the distant mountains at Anji’s back. Kit tugged on her horse’s reins. She looked at Anji, her face drawn and haggard. “I had everything under control and you had to go and pull something cheap, something cowardly like that. There was no honor in what you did.”

Anji scoffed. “You’d be some distance from your bounty with your guts spilling out on the rocks and them riding off with me if I hadn’t done something. You should be thanking me!”

“Thanking you!” Kit rasped, her sarcastic laugh turning into a rattling cough. She cleared her throat, eyes piercing into Anji’s. “Thank you for what, exactly? This whole farce of a trip has been a disaster from the moment I plucked your miserable hide from that tavern. I should have left you there to rot.”